Debate on Woman Suffrage in the Senate of the United States

Mrs. Gougar. Gentlemen, we are here on behalf of the women citizens of this Republic, asking for political freedom. I maintain that there is no political question paramount to that of woman suffrage before the people of America to-day. Political parties would fain have us believe that tariff is the great question of the hour. Political parties know better. It is an insult to the intelligence of the present hour to say that when one-half of the citizens of this Republic are denied a direct voice in making the laws under which they shall live, that tariff, or that the civil rights of the negro, or any other question that can be brought up, is equal to the one of giving political freedom to women. So I come to ask you, as representative men, making laws to govern the women the same as the men of this country (and there is not a law that you make in the United States Congress in which woman has not an equal interest with man), to take the word "male" out of the constitutions of the United States and the several States, as you have taken the word "white" out, and give to us women a voice in the laws under which we live.

You ask me why I am inclined to be practical in my view of this question. In the first place, speaking from my own standpoint, I ask you to let me have a voice in the laws under which I shall live because the older empires of the earth are sending in upon our American shores a population drawing very largely from the asylums, yes, from the penitentiaries, the jails, and the poor-houses of the Old World. They are emptying those men upon our shores, and within a few months they are intrusted with the ballot, the law-making power in this Republic, and they and their representatives are seated in official and legislative positions. I, as an American-born woman, to-day enter my protest at being compelled to live under laws made by this class of men very largely, and myself being rendered utterly incapable of the protection that can only come from the ballot. While I would not have you take this right or privilege from those men whom we invite to our shores, I do ask you, in the face of this immense foreign immigration, to enfranchise the tax-paying, intelligent, moral, native-born women of America.

Miss Anthony. And foreign women, too.

Mrs. Gougar. Miss Anthony suggests an amendment, and I indorse it most heartily, and foreign women too, because if we let a foreign man vote I say let the foreign woman vote. I am in favor of universal suffrage.

Gentlemen, I ask this as a matter of justice; I ask it because it is an insult to the intelligence of the present to draw the sex line upon any right whatever. I know there are many objections urged, and I am sure that you have considered this question; but I only make the demand from the standpoint, not of sex, but of humanity.

As a Northern woman, as a woman from Indiana, I know that we have the intelligent, thinking, cultured, pure, patriotic men and women with us. We have the women who are engaged in philanthropic enterprises. We have in our own State the signatures of over 5,000 of the school teachers asking for woman's ballot. I ask you if the United States Government does not need the voice of those 5,000 educated school teachers as much as it needs the voice of the 240 male criminals who are, on an average, sent out of the penitentiary of Indiana every year, who go to the ballot-box upon every question whatever, and make laws under which those school teachers must live, and under which the mothers of our State must keep their homes and rear their children?

On behalf of the mothers of this country I demand that their hands shall be loosened before the ballot-box, and that they shall have the privilege of throwing the mother heart into the laws that shall follow their sons not only to the age of majority that only has been made legal, but is never recognized, and so I ask you to let the mothers carry their influence in protecting laws around the footsteps of those boys, even after their hair has turned gray and they have seats in the United States Congress. I ask you to give them the power to throw protecting laws around those boys to the very confines of eternity. This can be done in no indirect way; it can not be done by the silent influence; it can not be done by prayer. While I do not underestimate the power of prayer, I say give me my ballot on election day that shall send pure men, good men, intelligent men, statesmen, instead of the modern politician, into our legislative halls. I would rather have that ballot on election day than the prayers of all the disfranchised women in the universe.

So I ask you to loosen our hands. I ask you to let us join with you in developing this science of human government. What is politics after all but the science of government? We are interested in these questions, and we are investigating them already. We have our opinions. Recently an able man has said that we have been grandly developed physically and mentally, but as a nation we are a political infant. So we are, gentlemen; we are to-day in America politically simply an infant. Why is it? It is because we have not recognized God's family plan in government—man and woman together. He created the male and female, and gave them dominion together. We have dominion in every other interest in society, and why shall we not stand shoulder to shoulder and have dominion, in the science in government, in making the laws under which we shall live?

We are taxed to support this Government—this immense Capitol building is built largely from the industries of the tax-paying women of this country—and yet we are denied the slightest voice in distributing our taxes. Our foreparents did not object to taxation, but they did object to taxation without representation, and we, as thinking, industrious, active American women, object to taxation without representation. We are willing to contribute our share to the support of this Government, as we always have done, but we have a right to ask for our little yes and no in the form of the ballot so that we shall have a direct influence in distributing the taxes.

Gentlemen, I am amenable to the gallows and the penitentiary, and it is no more than right that I shall have a voice in framing the laws under which I shall he rewarded or punished. Am I asking too much of you as representative men of this great Government when I ask you to let me have a voice in making the laws under which I shall be rewarded or punished? It is written in the law of every State in this Union that a person in the courts shall have a jury of his peers, yet so long as the word "male" stands as it does in the Constitutions of the United States and the States no woman in any State of this Union can have a jury of her peers, I protest in the name of justice against going into the court-room and being compelled to run the gauntlet of the gutter and of the saloon—yes, even of the police court and of the jail—as we are compelled to do to select a male jury to try the interests of women, whether relating to life, property, or reputation. So long as the word "male" is in our constitutions just so long we can not have a jury of our peers in any State in the Union.

I ask that the women shall have the right of the ballot that they may go into our legislative halls and there provide for the prevention rather than the cure of crime. I ask you on behalf of the twelve hundred children under twelve years of age who are in the poor-houses of Indiana, of the sixteen hundred in the poor-houses of Illinois, and on that average in every State in the Union, that you shall take the word "male" out of the constitutions and allow the women of this country to sit in legislative halls and provide homes for and look after the little waifs of society. There are hundreds of moral questions to-day requiring the assistance of the moral element of womanhood to help make the laws under which we shall live.

Gentlemen, the political party that lives in the future must fight the moral battles of humanity. The day of blood is passed; the day of brain and heart is upon us; and I ask you to let the moral constituency that resides in woman's nature be represented. Let me say right here that I do not believe that there is morality in sex, but the social customs have been such that woman has been held to a higher standard. May the day hasten when the social custom shall hold man to as high a moral standard as it to-day holds woman.

This is the condition of things. The political party that presumes to fight the moral battles of the future must have the women in its ranks. We are non-partisan, as has been well said by my friend from Indiana [Mrs. Sewall.] We come Democrats, Republicans, and Greenbackers, and I expect if there were a half dozen other political parties some of us would belong to them. We ask this beneficent action upon your part because we believe that the intelligence and the justice of the hour is demanding it. We do not want a political party action. We want you to keep this question out of the canvass. We ask you in the name of justice and humanity alone, and not on the part of party.

I hold in my hand a petition sent from one district in the State of Illinois with the request that I bear it to you. Out of three hundred electors the names of two hundred stand in this petition that I shall leave in your hands. In this list stand not the wife-whippers, not the drunkards, not the dissolute, but every minister in that town, every editor in that town, every professional man in that town, every banker, and every prominent business man in that town of three hundred electors. I believe that petitions could be rolled up in this way in every town in the Northern and in many of the Southern States. I leave this petition with you for your consideration.

Upon no question whatever has such a large number of petitions been sent as upon this demand for woman suffrage. You have the petitions in your hands, and I ask you in the name of justice and humanity not to let this Congress adjourn without action.

You ask us if we are impatient. Yes; we are impatient. Some of us may die, and I want our grand old standard-bearer, Susan B. Anthony, whose name will go down to history beside that of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Wendell Phillips—I want that woman to go to heaven a free angel from this Republic. The power lies in your hands to make us all free. May the blessing of God be upon the hearts of every one of you, gentlemen; may the scales of prejudice fall from your eyes, and may you, representing the Senate of the United States, have the grand honor of telegraphing to us, to the millions of waiting women from one end of this country to the other, that the sixteenth amendment has been submitted to the ratification of the several legislatures of our States striking the word "male" out of the constitutions; and that this shall be, as we promise it to be, a government of the people, for the people, and by the people.

REMARKS BY MRS. ABIGAIL SCOTT DUNIWAY.

Miss Anthony. I now, gentlemen of the committee, introduce to you Mrs. Abigail Scott Duniway, from the extreme Northwest; and before she speaks I wish to say that she has been the one canvasser in the great State of Oregon and Washington Territory, and that it is to Mrs. Duniway that the women of Washington Territory are more indebted than to all other influences for their enfranchisement.

Mrs. Duniway. Gentlemen of the committee, do you think it possible that an agitation like this can go on and on forever without a victory? Do you not see that the golden moment has come for this grand committee to achieve immortality upon the grandest idea that has ever stirred the heart-beats of American citizens, and will you not in the magnanimity of noble purposes rise to meet the situation and, accede to our demand, which in your hearts you must know is just?

I do not come before you, gentlemen, with the expectation to instruct you in regard to the laws of our country. The women around us are law-abiding women. They are the mothers, many of them, of true and noble men, the wives, many of them, of grand, free husbands, who are listening, watching, waiting eagerly for successful tidings of this great experiment.

There never was a grander theory of government than that of these United States. Never were grander principles enunciated upon any platform, never so grand before and never can be grander again, than the declaration that "all men," including of course all women, since women are amenable to the laws, "are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights * * * that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

Gentlemen, are we allowed the opportunity of consent? These women who are here from Maine to Oregon, from the Straits of Fuca to the reefs of Florida, who in their representative capacity have come up here so often, augmented in their numbers year by year, looking with eyes of hope and hearts of faith, but oftentimes with hopes deferred, upon the final solution of this great problem, which it is so much in your hands to hasten in its solution—these women are in earnest. My State is far away beyond the confines of the Rocky Mountains, away over beside the singing Pacific sea, but the spirit of liberty is among us there, and the public heart has been stirred. The hearts of our men have been moved to listen to our demands, and in Washington Territory, as one speaker has informed you, women to-day are endowed with full and free enfranchisement, and the rejoicing throughout that Territory is universal.

In Oregon men have also listened to our demand, and the Legislature has in two successive sessions agreed upon a proposition to amend our State constitution, a proposition which will be submitted for ratification to our voters at the coming June election. It is simply a proposition declaring that the right of suffrage shall not hereafter be prohibited in the State of Oregon on account of sex. Your action in the Senate of the United States will greatly determine the action of the voters of Oregon on our, or rather on their, election day, for we stand before the public in the anomaly of petitioners upon a great question in which we, in its final decision, are allowed no voice, and we can only stand with expectant hearts and almost bated breath awaiting the action of men who are to make this decision.

We have great hope for our victory, because the men of the broad, free West are grand, and chivalrous, and free. They have gone across the mighty continent with free steps; they have raised the standard of a new Pacific empire; they have imbibed the spirit of liberty with their very breath, and they have listened to us far in advance of many of the men of the older States who have not had their opportunity among the grand free wilds of nature for expansion.

So all of our leaders are with us to-day. You may go to either member of the Senate of the United States from Oregon, and while I can not speak so positively for the senior member, as he came over here some years ago before the public were so well educated as now, I can and do proudly vouch for the late Senator-elect DOLPH, who now has a seat upon the floor of the Senate, who is heart and soul and hand and purse in sympathy with this great movement for the enfranchisement of the women of Oregon. I would also be unjust to our worthy representative in the lower house, Hon. M.C. George, did I not proudly speak his name in this great connection. Men of this class are with us, and without regard to party affiliations we know that they are upon our side. Our governor, our associate supreme judge for the district of the Pacific, all of these men, are leading in the grand free way that characterizes the men of the West in assisting in this work. But we have—alas, that I should be compelled to say it—a great many men who pay no heed whatever to this question. Men will be entitled to a voice in this decision who are not, like members of Congress, the picked men of the nation or the State, but men, many of whom can not read, who will have an opportunity to decide this question as far as their ballots can go. These are they to whom the enlightened, educated motherhood of the State of Oregon must look largely for the decision.

This brings me to the grand point of our coming to Congress. Some of you say to us, "Why not leave this matter for settlement in the different States?" When we leave it for settlement in the different States we leave it just as I have told you, because of the constitutional provisions of our organic law we can not do otherwise; but if the question were to be settled by the Legislature of Oregon alone it would be settled now; and I, as a representative of that State only, would have no need of coming here; it would be settled just as it has been settled in Washington Territory; but when we come here to Congress it is the great nation asking you to take such legislative action in submitting an amendment to the Constitution of the United States as shall recognize the equality of these women who are here; these women who have come here from all parts of the country, whose constituents are looking on while we are here before you. As we reflect that our feeblest words uttered before this committee will go to the confines of this nation and be cabled across the great Atlantic and around the globe, we realize that more and more prominently our cause is growing into public favor, and the time is just upon us when some decision must be made.

Gentlemen of the committee, will you not recognize the importance of the movement? Who among you will be our standard-bearer? Who among you will achieve immortality by standing up in these halls in which we are forbidden to speak, and in the magnanimity of your own free wills and noble hearts champion the woman's cause and make us before the law, as we of right ought now to be, free and independent?

REMARKS BY MRS. CAROLINE GILKEY ROGERS.

Miss ANTHONY. I now call upon Mrs. Caroline Gilkey Rogers, of Lansingburg, N.Y., to address the committee.

Mrs. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, in our efforts to secure the right of citizenship we appeal only to your sense of justice and love of fair dealing.

We ask for the ballot because it is the symbol of equality. There is no other recognized symbol of equality in this country. We ask for the ballot that we may be equal to man before the law. We urge a twofold right—our right to the Republic, the Republic's right to us. We believe the interests of the country are identical with the interests of all its citizens, including women, and that the Government can no longer afford to shut women out from the affairs of the State and nation, and wise men are beginning to know that they are needed in the Government; that they are needed where our laws are made as well as where they are violated.

Many admit the justice of our claim, but will say, Is it safe? Is it expedient? It is always safe to do right; is always expedient to be just. Justice can never bring evil in its train.

The question is asked how and what would the women do in the State and nation? We do not pledge ourselves to anything. I claim that we can not have a better government than that of the people. The present Government is of only a part of the people. We have not yet entered upon the system of higher arbitration, because the Government is of man only. If we had been marching along with you all this time I trust we should have reached a higher plane of civilization.

We believe that all the virtue of the world can take care of all the evil, and all the intelligence can take care of all the ignorance. Let us have all the virtue confront all the vice.

There is no need to do battle in this matter. In all kindness and gentleness we urge our claims. There is no need to declare war upon men, for the best of men in this country are with us heart and soul.

It is a common remark that unless some new element is infused into our political life our nation is doomed to destruction. What more fitting element than the noble type of American womanhood, who have taught our Presidents, Senators, and Congressmen the rudiments of all they know.

Think of all the foreigners and all our own native-born ignorant men who can not write their own names or read the Declaration of Independence making laws for such women as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Think of jurors drawn from these ranks to watch and try young girls for crimes often committed against them when the male criminal goes free. Think of a single one of these votes on election day outweighing all the women in the country. Is it not humiliating for me to sit, a political cipher, and see the colored man in my employ, to whom I have taught the alphabet, go out on election day and say by his vote what shall be done with my tax money. How would you like it?

When we think of the wives trampled on by husbands whom the law has taught them to regard as inferior beings, and of the mothers whose children are torn from their arms by the direct behest of the law at the bidding of a dead or living father, when we think of these things, our hearts ache with pity and indignation.

If mothers could only realize how the laws which they have no voice in making and no power to change affect them at every point, how they enter every door, whether palace or hovel, touch, limit, and bind, every article and inmate from the smallest child up, no woman, however shrinking and delicate, can escape it, they would get beyond the meaningless cry, "I have all the rights I want." Do these women know that in most States in the Union the shameful fact that no woman has any legal rights to her own child, except it is born out of wedlock! In these States there is not a line of positive law to protect the mother; the father is the legal protector and guardian of the children.

Under the laws of most of the States to-day a husband may by his last will bequeath his child away from its mother, so that she might, if the guardian chose, never see it again.

The husband may have been a very bad man, and in a moment of anger made the will. The guardian he has appointed may turn out a malicious man, and take pleasure in tormenting the mother, or he may bring up the children in a way that the mother thinks ruinous to them, and she has no redress in law. Why do not all the fortunate mothers in the land cry out against such a law? Why do not all women say, "Inasmuch as the law has done this wrong unto the least of these my sisters it has done it unto me." It is true that men are almost always better than their laws, but while a bad law remains on the statute-books it gives to an unscrupulous man a right to be as bad as the law.

It is often said to us when all the women ask for the ballot it will be granted. Did all the married women petition the Legislatures of their States to secure to them the right to hold in their own name the property that belonged to them? To secure to the poor forsaken wife the right to her earnings?

All the women did not ask for these rights, but all accepted them with joy and gladness when they were obtained, and so it will be with the franchise. But woman's right to self-government does not depend upon the numbers that demand it, but upon precisely the same principles that man claims it for himself.

Where did man get the authority that he now claims to govern one-half of humanity, from what power the right to place woman, his helpmeet in life, in an inferior position? Came it from nature? Nature made woman his superior when she made her his mother—his equal when she fitted her to hold the sacred position of wife. Did women meet in council and voluntarily give up all their claim to be their own law-makers?

The power of the strong over the weak makes man the master. Yes, then, and then only, does he gain the authority.

It is all very well to say "convert the women." While we most heartily wish they could all feel as we do, yet when it comes to the decision of this great question they are mere ciphers, for if this question is settled by the States it will be left to the voters, not to the women to decide. Or if suffrage comes to women through a sixteenth amendment of the national Constitution, it will be decided by Legislatures elected by men. In neither case will women have an opportunity of passing; upon the question. So reason tells us we must devote our best efforts to converting those to whom we must look for the removal of our disabilities, which now prevent our exercising the right of suffrage.